The stream meandered through woods and fields, came to a place with gently sloping hills and lush growing greens. Life was abundant there, and was drawn to the place. Animals played, had their young, and birds nested in the tree limbs and hollows.

Storms brought flooding brown waters and dropped their silt on the bottom as the ages passed; the silt layers deepened and became shale layered with the many colors of the storms.

People came and found the place good; food was plentiful and the hills rose above the waters when they rose in flood, fish idled in them when they gently flowed. Transient camps with quickly erected shelters were perched on the hillside, fires glowed at night. Children and hunters, women gathering food crossed the place on the rocks above the waters.

The place by the stream took in the life, the energy, the light of the sun and the rage of the rain, and slowly became imbued with power.

Years passed and war came to the people who had settled there and to a nearby village where hats were made and sold to provide a living for the villagers. A huge conflict between two nations had risen in the affairs of man, and soldiers marched by with their weapons, camped by the stream to rest at night and on their way to battles. The village was the unhappy host of a grand conflict, and lives were lost, perhaps the stream took their blood into its flow.

The war ended, the victors had their own rule and time passed on. New families came and built homes by the stream. A small house was completed atop the hill, and others joined it. The people of the small community sought the place to build a bridge to join the sides together so that they could pass over the waters on their daily pursuits.

They found the place where the stream gave a rare charge; the energy of the years had concentrated there and it felt special. The bridge was built, fine and sturdy and many passed over it in its time.

When the rain times came and the waters rose, they gathered on the bridge, umbrellas in hand, to see the rise of the waters, feel the energy of the floods charge through. Laughter and excitement from witnessing the drama of nature rang through the roar of the waters. Those who built too near the stream found the waters inside their home; the bridge was strong though and withstood the flood times.

Time passed, new families came, some houses were taken down and bigger ones on divided land were built. And the bridge was taken down. The new people did not know of the energy, the special history of the place, nor did they cross the waters on their daily paths. The waters were now crossed by car on the service bridge of the road.

But the bridge has its memories, its own power that it has gathered, and it stays by the stream and dreams in sun, shadow and falling rain.

She was seven years old. I knew, for real, that Santa wasn’t real. But I was not ready to hear it from a grown up!

I was the little girl who remained in her wading pool in the backyard till long after dark- twining my legs together and wishing to be a mermaid.

If I just believed enough…

Finding a Mermaid

I sat on my bureau, my back pressed firmly against my mirror for long spans of time, waiting to melt into it… it had worked for Alice.

And I waited at the window, looking into the dark skies for Peter Pan. I just knew he could make me fly!

Even younger I made cardboard stars, cut them out and taped them to sticks, then danced in the night saying “”Bibbidi–Bobbidi–Boo!”

But I never did turn into a fairy either.

Firefly Frolic

So I grew, and went into spinning stories and tales. I walked alone in the forest for many happy hours, looking for the magic that is in the world.

The secret home of a small animal, a beautiful rock or a fossil with a locked in secret; a feather, a deer trail, a patch of beautiful bluebells that bloomed every year. All these became my magic. My secrets.

Fairy Wood II

And I drew pictures of princesses, fairies, fairy princesses, mermaids and people flying.

In high school I drew walking eyeballs, monsters and more mermaids. Surreal scenes of imps and creatures creeping about while you slept.

With a sketch pad and pencil I was never bored.

Imagination is such a friend of childhood; all that you can conceive of could be real.

What a challenge to hold onto it as you become and adult. I guess people like Stephen King and Charles de Lint, Cecilia Dart Thornton and Patricia McKillip have all protected their imaginations deep within their being to bring out and express in wonderful fiction. Musicians tell stories with well woven strands of song and instrument, painting pictures in the mind.

Artists such as myself dream and draw and paint their imaginings on paper. Well, trees and rocks and sand too- any surface is fair game!

And as I do I go backward into the years when I was a mermaid, a fairy, off on a grand adventure.

And I still walk in the forest for hours looking for the wondrous Magic that will always remain there.

Have a good and imaginative day, all!

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About the artist

Throughout Patricia's adult life she has been painting and enjoying presenting images of the world as seen and imagined. The paintings you see these blog are frequently textural, suggesting multiple layers of images through time. Ancient scenes, structures, people from long ago, and other realms weave through many of these paintings.

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